Your Best
by HecateA
Summary: Al has no idea how to help their friend through a loss this devastating. Harry has some suggestions. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: **Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Discussion of character death, supporting a friend through grief

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Sky's the Limit; Eternal Rhapsody; Hogwarts

**Individual Challenge(s): **Gryffindor MC; Ravenclaw MC; Seeds; Times to Come; Old Shoes; Themes and Things A (Friendship); Themes and Things B (Loss); Themes and Things C (Blanket); Advice From the Mug; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash

**Representation(s): **Non-binary Al Potter

**Bonus challenge(s): **Car in a Tutu; A Long Doc; Second Verse (Spinning Plates); Chorus (Mouth of Babes)

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **NA

**Word Count: **860

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**The Best You Can**

_And anytime you feel the pain_

_Hey Jude, refrain_

_Don't carry the world upon your shoulders_

_For well you know that it's a fool_

_Who plays it cool_

_By making his world a little colder_

-Hey Jude, _The Beatles _

Harry knocked twice before slipping open his second child's bedroom. Al was curled up in bed, twisted up in their favourite quilt, the lamp shining above their bed. They looked up when Harry came in, and popped out their earbuds.

"Hey," Harry said. "You should probably get some rest. Or at least change into sleeping clothes."

"Yeah," Al said, fiddling with their earbuds. They were still wearing the black slacks and tunic they'd come home in hours later, after sitting through the wake with Scorpius.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked, stepping inside and shutting the door behind himself. Since he wasn't shooed out of the room immediately, he reckoned that he'd made the right call.

"I'm so sad that she died," Al said earnestly, looking up at Harry.

"I know," Harry said. "Mrs. Malfoy was a lovely lady. She was always so thoughtful and quick to smile and witty…"

Al nodded. "And she used to just tell old stories or teach us bits of Chinese or spit out poetry all the time. She'd always have something to show me or tell me or give me when I went over. It was like she was always thinking about you, about the world."

Harry nodded and sat down at the foot of Al's bed, settling in to listen to Al for as long as it took for all their stories about Astoria Greengrass Malfoy to pour out.

"But the worst part is that no matter how sad it is, nobody's sadder than Scorpius," Al said. "Well, maybe M. Malfoy. I don't know, that's not really a fair question at all. But I can't imagine losing Mum."

"I can't either," Harry admitted.

"So I can't imagine what Scor is going through," Al said quietly. "And I don't know what to do or how to be a good friend, when school starts again in January and we all go back to Hogwarts."

Harry nodded. "It's difficult."

Al didn't have anything to add to that, just that big impossible questions. They had always been Harry's most inquisitive child, the one with the biggest questions. Harry wasn't sure how good at answering he was, but he tried.

"I was too young to remember anything at all when my parents died," Harry said, reaching out to put a hand on Al's knee. "But when Sirius died—that… that hurt. Sometimes I wanted to be alone, and sometimes I felt as if I'd drown if I didn't have your mum or Ron or Hermione within eyesight. That was all in the same day, sometimes. At the same time, even."

Al looked at Harry perfectly still, green eyes frozen over and cool as emerald—as if they were afraid that a single move would send Harry running to the hills. He knew he spoke very little of the war and his teenage years. He'd told his children everything, to make sure they found out from him as opposed to the press, but the details… It was hard to know how much details to get into when and with who and why. There was also so much he just _didn't _want them to know—about himself, about the world, about how badly it could all hurt…

"What mattered the most to me, at the time, was that I had people who loved me closeby, always. And they were ready to eb and flow like I was, because each day was different," Harry said. "Ron and Hermione would let me walk around the Great Lake for hours on end on my own, but the second I sat down with them in the Common Room they'd reshuffle their playing cards or make some room on the sofa and it was like I'd been there all along. It was really important to Hermione that I ate breakfast every day, though. I took care of myself in little ways because other. Ron was really good at tricking me into going to sleep or changing my clothes. They didn't let me slip away."

Al chewed his lip. "I've never had to face something like that."

"Good," Harry said. "I worked very hard to make this world better for you. But bad things still happen for no good reason. When they do, like they did for Scorpius, the best you can do is… well, your best. Be there for him."

"That doesn't feel like it's enough," Al said.

"Nothing is, when you lose someone who really matters," Harry said. "But it'll mean a lot to him, I promise."

"I love you," Al said. "Scorpius said it to his mum all the time, and now he won't get to again. I… I'm shyer and more awkward than he is, but I should say it more."

"I love you too," Harry said. He reached out for Al, who came closer and buried their face against Harry's chest. "I can practise saying it more too. It's never something you say enough of, anyways."


End file.
